Between Good and Evil
by CaptainPeroxide1317
Summary: Opposites or not, there was no way he could ever see her again, or know her, and one day she would know who he really was, and what he had to do... One day, Yuffie Kisaragi would hate him. Yazfie Oneshot


**A/N: Don't own FFVII, but that's no reason to abandon hope. Sort of pre-AC/AU-ish.**

It was a hilltop.

He didn't know why she had brought him, of all people, here.

He frowned. _What did she mean by it?_

"It's really nice up there..." He remembered her innocent smile as she had said it.

"Why me?" he had asked.

Her response was a shrug. "You should just see it."

***

Why had he even come along?

But it _was_ fairly pleasant, he had to admit that. The sky beyond them was a deep gold and red combination. A few clouds were fanning across the horizon, blocking the rays of the dying sun.

The girl sat on the ground, lying back after a few minutes, completely at ease. She closed her eyes as one of the intermittent shafts of sun fell onto her face, illuminating her features for a minute. "Isn't it great here?"

He sighed, suddenly deep in thought.

He knew perfectly well why he'd come with her, although he was unlikely to ever say it out loud. He was barely able to _think_ it without feeling foolish somehow...

He liked her.

She was annoying. She was impetuous, and rude. She was constantly talking to him, following him...

But then she could change and be like this – just silent and enjoying the things around her, behaviour he found difficult to emulate. Why waste time staring up at the sky, or talking, or laughing?

He had a mission, and there was nothing else, nothing else for him to care about...

_If she really knew... what I have to do... would she still talk to me? Would she still..._

Ever since he had met her, things had... changed.

***

The day they had met was rather strange. Yazoo had been on a solo mission, in a forest, supposed to be scouting for a new possible refuge. She'd stumbled into the clearing, obviously in a furious mood, clutching one ankle and hopping on her other foot.

She'd stared when she saw him, with good reason. Everybody he met would freeze, taking in his unnatural appearance. He stood there, staring her down, unsure whether or not to take action. Deciding to wait and see if she said anything worth getting herself killed.

Her silence was a long one, or so it seemed to him.

"Who are _you_?" came her inevitable question from across the clearing.

He sighed and turned to walk the other way. He hadn't seen any good places for a new base, and would be better to avoid random encounters with people anyway. He made sure she could see his gunblade, swinging it idly in one hand, hoping she would avoid him because of it. Most people did.

But he'd been walking for about five minutes in the opposite direction, before hearing a strange thumping sound behind him. Perplexed, he looked over his shoulder to see the girl limping towards him.

"Hey, wait up!"

She was slightly odd looking, for a human, with short black hair, almost spiky at the ends, and expressive brown eyes. She was small-boned and quite a bit shorter than him, clad in cream-colored shorts and a dark shirt. She raised a hand to hail him. He turned around again and continued to walk away.

"I said _hey_!"

Yazoo heard her limping faster, and the obvious pain it was causing her, for the thumping footsteps were accompanied by irritated whimpers.

"Go home, girl. You don't want to follow me."

"Sure I do," she replied, now managing to limp alongside him, despite his speed. "You know where you're going, right? I'm kinda lost. So, yeah, I wanna follow you."

He shook his head.

"What if I'm going somewhere you don't want to be?" he asked coolly, hoping she would just give up and leave if he intimidated her enough.

She shrugged. "I'll find my way back home somehow. But if I don't have to spend forever trying to do that, I won't." She paused. "Come _on_. Just take me to civilisation and I'll be fine."

Yazoo spun around suddenly, and, caught by surprise, she smacked into him. Taking her arms, he pushed her away just enough to look down at her surprised face.

"And what if I'm not heading to civilisation?" he asked quietly, wondering why this girl was so determined to bother him. He saw her eyebrows knit in confusion.

"Well then, where are you going?"

He let go of her, turning around and starting to walk again. "A cave."

"A cave? Why?" much to his annoyance, she persisted in keeping up with him.

He sighed, becoming irritated. "Because it's... where I'm going." He paused, before adding "If you want to find your way home, there's a town to the northwest of this forest, I think. Good luck."

With that, he started walking faster, hoping that due to her limp and the length of his legs compared to hers, she would give up. He stopped after a few minutes to listen. There was total silence, no one following him. Smirking slightly in bitter triumph, he continued at a slower pace, assuming she had finally resigned herself to going on alone.

It was getting darker out, and it took him some time to remember where he was heading now. Unfortunately he was not familiar with this part of the forest. He sat down in a tree-edged stretch of grass and looked around for a few minutes, trying to get his bearings.

He had narrowed down his direction to either east or north-east when a voice startled him.

"You're lost too, aren't you?"

Looking over his shoulder, Yazoo saw the same girl standing over him, grinning boldly. He started.

"Where did _you_ come from?" he didn't raise his voice much, but his surprise and indignation were obvious. "I thought you'd left."

"Nah. I didn't want to be left all alone, so I just followed you. It's kind of mean to abandon a helpless stranger in the middle of the woods, you know," she informed him, somewhat haughtily.

He frowned at her. "Why didn't I hear you following me?"

She grinned again. "Well, I'm a ninja. That's probably why. I'm trained to be stealthy."

He snorted disbelievingly. "A ninja?"

"Hell yes, I'm a ninja. What, you think just 'cause I twisted my ankle I'm some weak little girl?"

"If you're a ninja, why don't you have a weapon? There are some dangerous things in these woods."

"I _had_ a weapon," she said stubbornly. "A shuriken. I just sort of... lost it."

"You _lost_ your weapon?" He smiled derisively. _Ninja indeed._

Her mouth was becoming an impenetrable frown. She narrowed her eyes and stared him down, and he was surprised by how intimidating she actually looked with that expression – intimidating enough to even throw _him_ off guard.

Albeit, just for a minute, of course.

"Yeah, I lost it, so what?" she asked huffily. "I was running around trying to find the path I lost, and I tripped over this root thing, and I nearly fell into this freaking _gorge_... When I tripped my shuriken flew out of my hand and it sort of... fell...somewhere."

He glanced at her appraisingly.

Why was she telling him all this?

_She is very talkative, for a human..._ Ordinarily he would have been motivated to shut her up, but somehow he felt a curiosity towards the girl. He couldn't tell if it was braveness or idiocy that had caused her to follow him, but whatever it was, she hadn't really betrayed any signs of fear at seeing him, like most other people.

_Why isn't she afraid? I don't understand it. Maybe her constant talking is because she _is_ afraid? ..._

"And, yeah, with my ankle... I didn't feel like going after it." She finished lamely. Her icy glare had been reduced to an indignant pout now.

Yazoo stood up and crossed his arms, showing off his full height compared to hers.

He looked at her for a minute, considering whether or not it would be worth it to tell her to go away again. Probably not. With nothing more to say, he turned his back on her and started walking north.

She followed him, as he'd expected her to. He was slower than usual, allowing her to limp beside him.

"So, who are you, anyway?" she asked. He was surprised that she hadn't insisted to know _that_ in the beginning, what with his physical relation to a certain… man.

Maybe she was giving him the benefit of the doubt.

He looked at the sky. "Doesn't matter."

He saw her frown again. "Only stalkers and psychos say stuff like that," she muttered under her breath.

He felt the corner of his mouth lift unintentionally, and he decided to humor her. "My name is Yazoo. Is your curiosity satisfied now?"

"Weird name." She ignored his cynical question.

"And who are you?"

She grinned suddenly. "Yuffie Kisaragi. Professional Ninja and materia hunter!"

"Oh, right. Ninja. Apparently." He let just a small bit of sarcasm lace his words, and felt her giving him one of her icy glares again.

***

He walked all the way to the town he'd told her to find, just to get her there. He surmised that if she was escorted back, she'd leave him alone. She had tried asking him all sorts of questions about who he was, what he was doing in the forest anyway, that sort of thing. He'd refused to answer, and she gave up eventually, though his attitude clearly frustrated her.

He left her standing outside the door of the inn, figuring it was the last time he'd see this strange ninja, who didn't really _act_ like a ninja, or so he thought.

But they'd seen each other again. A few weeks later he'd been exploring a new town, Wutai, on the one continent he'd never been to. He was walking out of a shop and there she was, standing on the street corner. Her ankle seemed to have healed, and she was carrying a shuriken now, but it was the same girl, unmistakeably.

He'd frowned and shrugged, turning to exit the town as he'd been about to do anyway. And then he heard a loud gasp from behind him, and though he kept striding resolutely away, soon enough her footsteps caught up to his.

"Hey! Er... cave guy!"

He frowned._ Demands to know my name, and then forgets it..._ He shook his head again, still walking.

She jumped straight into his path and he almost collided with her. She was breathing hard, having just chased him down a few streets. He eyed the shuriken warily.

"Hey!" she repeated. "What are you doing here?"

"What are _you_ doing here?" he folded his arms.

"This is my hometown, genius," she glanced over her shoulder at the palace in the distance. He hadn't given it much notice. Palaces didn't interest him. He had only come to see if there was anyone here suffering from Geostigma... from what he'd seen, there was no one... yet.

So he really should be leaving, not standing around talking to random ninjas.

"You live here?"

"Uh... yes and no." she looked away from the palace at last, caught between surprise and smugness. "I'm the Princess of Wutai. You haven't heard of me?"

"I don't keep track of foreign princesses," he replied curtly, but was secretly interested. This girl – Yuffie was her name, wasn't it? - a princess? That was even more unlikely than her being a ninja. Weren't princesses supposed to be sort of...polite and well-dressed?

"So that makes you uninformed _and_ rude," she scoffed. He made a face of mock indignation before turning around and walking away.

"Hey, wait a minute," she walked beside him. "Where are you going?"

"Somewhere you can't follow me," he responded, feeling very jaded, bewildered as to why this girl would not just leave him _alone_.

"I just have one question," Yuffie pressed.

"A question you haven't asked before?" he said sceptically. She'd interrogated him so much in the forest it was hard to believe.

"Yeah." She walked into his direct path again and now her expression was more serious than before.

"Well?"

"Are you related to Sephiroth?"

There was a beat.

Yazoo looked her straight in the eye, calculating, trying to form a response in his head. If he was honest, she would obviously want to know more, and he would probably have to get rid of her later because of it.

If he lied... she wouldn't have any real reason to delay him, and might even think she had insulted him.

He didn't blink as he finally spoke. "No."

Without waiting for a response, he shoved his way past her, not once looking back as he left the town. He didn't stop to allow himself to think about it, not until he was settling down on a stretch of hard ground for the night.

He pulled out his phone and checked in with Kadaj - he was supposed to go back to the Forgotten City tomorrow. He could afford one night here.

He had time to think. Unfortunately.

He rolled onto his back, staring up at the sky, dark red from the setting sun, an organic beauty that meant nothing to him as he pondered what had just happened.

So what? So this ninja girl knew who Sephiroth was. A lot of people did. He'd been questioned, suspected, ostracized in the various towns he'd visited, because people knew who Sephiroth was, and because he looked like him. She wasn't the first resident of Wutai to suspect it, probably, although she was the only one bold enough to ask him about it.

He should've gotten a hood or a cloak as he'd had to once or twice before. It might just be easier to go into all towns like that. But at the same time, well... after the Reunion, these ignorant people in the towns wouldn't matter, would they?

The Reunion, yes. That was what he had to remember. After the Reunion, this would all be -

"You're actually _sleeping_ out here?"

Not for the first time, he was shocked by the voice behind him. Sitting bolt upright, he whipped around to see Yuffie standing there.

He let out a frustrated sigh. "_Why_ do you keep following me?"

"I just wanted to... sort of... apologise," she said, surprising him.

"What?"

"For asking that, about Sephiroth," she amended, kneeling down beside his makeshift bed. "I mean, you probably saw it coming, but, obviously… if you know who he was, and how dangerous he was... I had to ask."

Yazoo was silent.

"So, I'm sorry if I offended you. If you really are, you know. Nothing to do with him. It's just, you look... _so_... " she bit her lip hesitantly. "So similar. I couldn't really think of any other explanation."

Again, he didn't answer. For some reason he didn't want to lie outright again.

After a minute, he nodded slowly, to show he accepted her apology, hoping she would now go away.

But she didn't. Instead she glanced at the darkening sky. "You know, the sun's not completely set yet..."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"There's this really cool place nearby," she said suddenly, with a strange enthusiasm. "You can see the sunset... It's really nice up there... Wanna come?"

He frowned in confusion.

"Why me?"

She looked away from him for a minute with a shrug. "You should just see it."

***

That was how he ended up here, alone with this strange ninja girl on this strange hilltop of sorts, watching the sun dip over the horizon. Wutai really did have good scenery.

Yazoo suddenly crossed over to sit beside her, throwing a last glance at the sunset, resting his chin on one hand and thinking.

He didn't know precisely what explanation _she'd_ come up with for his resemblance to Sephiroth, and hoped she wouldn't ask, because he had no idea what he would say. But she seemed to trust him now. Maybe that was just guilt. Maybe she had just invited him here out of guilt. Or maybe she was just bored. He didn't know her personality, after all.

And yet...

And yet she didn't _really_ know who he was, and somehow that was... pleasant. Not to have his true identity constricting his actions. She didn't judge him the way other people did. She'd still talked to him politely even before she'd asked about Sephiroth.

And in some way, he admired her.

She was just a human girl. Yazoo was the opposite of everything she was, in every way possible, and some ways impossible. But she, despite her airs, seemed like an embodiment of... _goodness_. And he was the complete reverse of goodness, or so it felt. It had always been that way. So many times had someone told him he was evil, impure, tainted.

He'd stopped their voices swiftly, but it didn't stop the ringing in his ears. Tainted... _they_ were the ones who were tainted, the way he saw it. The way he and his brothers were different, it was a superior difference. Or so he had always thought.

Kadaj, of course, had always said that was the case. His younger brother believed it so completely because he could never see anything aside from the Reunion. Being the more introspective of the three Remnants, Yazoo had always understood the Reunion as the main goal and seen its purpose, but...

But just occasionally, he had thought, maybe it's the other way around. Maybe all these people _are_ the pure, honourable ones. Maybe we _are_ the scourge, taking away what we don't deserve to take.

He had never spoken to a human so much before that he didn't end up killing. But before he'd met this girl, he had learned to shake off those thoughts. Now _she_ was forcing him to remember the things he'd once considered not possible…

The sun had almost completely set by now. He came back out of his musings for a minute, and looked down at the girl lying beside him.

_Goodness..._

_If she is good, am I evil?_

Yuffie still had her eyes closed. He wondered if she was perhaps falling asleep.

The word echoed in his mind.

Evil.

He saw a brief flash, the cold face and gleaming eyes of Sephiroth. He heard the distant whisper of his mother, who had never really spoken to him clearly before…

Yazoo reached out, wavering for a second.

… he was _not_ Sephiroth. That much he was sure of.

He carefully brushed a few strands of hair out of her face, hesitantly, expecting her to slap him away, or jump up and run off. Instead she stayed perfectly still, eyes closed, until he withdrew his hand. Maybe she was sleeping.

But she opened her eyes after a minute, looking directly at him, and he could see how she wasn't judging him for anything. Not for his actions, or his enigmatic words, or the way he so strongly resembled the legendary Sephiroth. She even smiled at him slightly, raising herself up on her elbows to see him more closely.

Tentatively, he reached out again and traced her jaw, feeling her heartbeat becoming erratic. She still wasn't judging him. She was accepting him, welcoming him. Allowing him to do these things.

He felt unbearably miserable all of a sudden, looking into her youthful face. Because he _did_ like her, and because she accepted him this way... because he knew what she didn't know.

Opposites or not, there was no way he could ever see her again, or know her, and one day she would know who he really was, and what he had to do.

One day, Yuffie Kisaragi would hate him.

And that was something he could not prevent.

**A/N:**

**Yazfie FTW! Hopefully not too lame or anything, it was meant to be kind of sad. The obscure locations used here are perhaps my invention …I've not played the original game in ages, so I dunno. I exercise creative license there I guess. I like constructive criticism, but I may not make too many changes on this one unless I think it's worth it, because I've re-written this like ten times. xD **

**Also, my other story, Memory Loss, has not been forgotten… I'm still re-writing it, but I'd like to get most of the chapters done before I put them up… the full story's probably about 10+ chapters. But I am working on it, if steadily.**

**Anyways, read and review if you so desire. Adios!**


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